


By the Skin of Our Necks

by ivynights (incantatem)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s05e16 Dark Side of the Moon, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-12
Updated: 2011-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-27 05:57:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/292370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incantatem/pseuds/ivynights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times in the life of an amulet. (Also includes Sam saving the world!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	By the Skin of Our Necks

**Author's Note:**

> First - Huge thanks to nitro26 and midnightglass for being terrific betas and all around lovely people. Second - Like everyone else, the end of 5x16 split me open and apparently this is what came spilling out.

1.

It's Christmastime.   

Before school let out for Winter Break, kids had been boasting about their upcoming gifts, trying to one up each other, measuring their parents’ love in new bikes and Nintendos.  

Sam knows his dad loves him. But right now, he'd be hard pressed to articulate how much. It’s December 25th, and they haven't even heard from their father in days, don't know where he is, and the only gift Sam's received this holiday season is the realization that his entire worldview has just been shaken to its core. Yes, Samantha, there are monsters.  

No, Samantha, there isn't a Santa Claus.  

When school starts up again, Sam will have to stay out of the bragging competition. No shiny gift to compare to the lot. However, Sam knows he does have something special he could brag about. The other kids just wouldn't understand it.  

He's got Dean. He cooks his meals, he keeps him safe, he steals shit for him, he cheers him up, he _cracks_ him up, he bails him out when the kids at school turn nasty, and he’s just all around _awesome_. Dean always comes through. He even tried his best to let Sam join in the parental love bragging game. It's not his fault John's in absentia and the kid up the street's a chick with chick presents. But by the way he's looking at Sam right now, it seems like Dean feels that it is. And that's just wrong.  

He hands Dean the package. It's the least he can do.  

“Thanks Sam,” says Dean, voice tight with some emotion Sam can’t quite put a name to, “I- I love it.”  

Yeah, Sam thinks, me too.

2.

John shows up again four days after Christmas. He doesn’t notice the necklace right away. They’re packed and on the road immediately. There’s a ghost haunting an apartment building in an Austin suburb that only turns deadly on New Year’s Eve, the anniversary of his drunken fall and ensuing demise. No time to waste; gotta locate and incinerate the remains before the countdown hits zero.

He gets the job done in time, as usual, but it's a close call. A developer actually removed the tombstones but was lazy enough to keep the bodies hidden under his prime real estate location. Luckily Dead to the New Year’s unmarked grave stayed untouched, hidden beneath the earth right to the side of the new office complex. Once John distracted the security guards, the job was practically done.

It's only 10:30. No need to hurry back so quickly; John isn't a people person, but when the alcohol is flowing, he can tolerate the crowds for an hour or two. Besides, the boys are fine. He’s given Dean strict instructions to make sure Sam’s in bed by 10 and said Dean was allowed to stay up and watch the countdown but to make sure he went to bed straight afterward. Dean would obey. He always did. Good kid.

The next time John checks his watch it’s close to 3 AM. The hours have been a hazy daze and his brain is moving slower than usual, just the way he likes it when he’s off-duty. Time to get back to the boys though. He left them squatting in a for-rent townhouse just outside the city.

Forty minutes later, he’s shocked to find a light still on in the front window. Fearing the worst, John hurries to the front door, stumbling slightly. He wrenches it open and hurries in, shotgun raised and ready.

All he sees is Dean sitting quietly on the couch, TV off, single bulb lighting the area around him. Nothing related to either extended New Years Eve festivities or demonic attack. Dean looks up with round eyes at the noise, hops off the couch quickly, hurrying over to him. “Dad,” he says, “Are you okay? How’d the hunt go?”

“ _Dean_ ,” John tries to keep his voice low but it’s a losing battle, “What are you doing? I told you to be in bed! You nearly scared me to death.”

“I – what?”

“The light was on! I thought you were attacked! What was I supposed to think?”

Dean blanches. “I was just waiting up for you. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Of course I’m fine. What’d you do a dumb thing like that for? Get to bed, we’ll deal with this in the morning.”

Dean pauses. It’s then that John notices. Dean’s got his hand up at his chest, worrying at something. It’s been there ever since he walked through the door.

“What is that?” John asks.

“What’s what?”

“Around your neck. What are you _fiddling_ with?”

“Oh! Uh, it was a present from Sam. Bobby gave it to him to give to… to me.” Dean holds the amulet out to show John with a hesitant smile, not removing it from his neck. “Neat, huh?”

“You’re wearing a _necklace_?”

“Um. Yeah.”

John’s silent for a moment. “It’s foolish, son. Charms like that don’t do a damn thing. I keep telling Bobby that but the stubborn man just won’t listen. Besides, it could snag on something, get caught while you’re running during a hunt. It’s nice Sam gave you something, but you should take it off.” John’s voice is gruff but honestly, he’s a bit puzzled. Dean’s a plain and simple kind of guy, never makes a fuss, no fancy tastes or _accessories_. That fact that it’s from Sam though, that explains a bit.

“No.” Dean’s voice is quiet, but it’s undercut with a uncooperative resolve John isn’t used to hearing from his eldest son.

“What?”

“I don’t want to take it off. Sam gave it to me and I like it. It’s mine.”

John restrains from rolling his eyes but his jaw tenses. If it weren’t 4 in the morning and he wasn’t bone tired and alcohol blurred, he might push the point. But he is.

“Fine. Just go to bed, Dean. We’ll deal with this later.”  
Dean turns and disappears down the hall, hand back up to his chest, as if reassuring himself the amulet is still in place.

This has to be the first time he can remember Dean ever refusing to follow an order, John thinks. He’s not sure he likes what it indicates.

They never bring it up again. Dean quits worrying at it, a tic that let his nerves bleed through for all to see, but he never takes it off either. Eventually, John becomes so used to seeing Dean wearing the damn thing that he forgets it ever wasn’t there.

3.

“Hey, wait," Sam says, "You probably want this back." He reaches around his neck, pulling out a charm and cord Dean never thought he’d see again.

Sam hands it to him and Dean pulls it over his head, quietly awed.

The amulet is alive with Sam’s body heat and settles against Dean’s chest with a reassuring presence. Aside from Sam’s embrace, Dean thinks, it’s the first bit of warmth he’s felt since he clawed his way out through the dirt of his own grave.

4.

After many months, the amulet’s finally back in Dean’s possession.

“It’s worthless,” says Castiel, before disappearing to deal with the loss of his faith in angelic privacy.

“We’ll find another way. We can still stop all this, Dean,” says Sam.

“How?” says Dean, question pseudo-rhetorical.

“I don’t know. But we’ll find it,” Sam insists, “You and me. We’ll find it.” His eyes are big and earnest, but Dean’s barely looking anywhere but down at what’s in his hand.

Dean grabs his bags and pauses in front of the door, back to Sam and necklace in hand.

Whatever the hell this amulet’s represented to the rest of world, from a protective charm of questionable abilities to a magical path to spiritual reassurance and divine location, there’s only ever been one thing it’s represented to Sam and Dean.

The thump it makes hitting the trashcan floor is the most hopeless noise Sam’s heard in a long time.

And yet… Sam feels resolve hit him down in his core. He wasn’t lying when he said they’d find another way.

He hears the squeak of the Impala’s doors as Dean starts packing the car. Sam waits a few seconds and then picks the amulet back out of the trash, tucking it carefully beneath his undershirt, the metal cool but solid against his skin.

5.

The world’s set to end on a Thursday and Sam hasn’t seen his brother in a couple of months.

But that doesn't mean he's been alone.

Lucifer and Michael are predators, circling what they perceive to be their prey. Honing in on his location and tracking him as he staggers forward to meet the end times. They follow Sam's blood trail. Its scent is a unique marker. The method is something much fouler than Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs but none the less effective.

They’ve been hunting him for weeks now.

They both pop up in his dreams and invade his waking hours, their presence directing the Impala along all the right turns and lane changes. Sam would look down the rest stop counter and see Lucifer having a drink, gazing back at him with implacable regard. He’d stop to refill the engine’s tank and see Michael standing at the next pump, posture preternaturally still and head tilted slightly as he studied Sam’s every movement. They’ve been guiding him, making sure his path leads him straight to ground zero. To Detroit.

And now he’s finally arrived.

He takes a deep breath and steadies himself. It’s show time. And he’s prepared.

Sam slows the Impala to a stop as he pulls up to a crossroads outside the city. He gets out of the car but leaves the headlights on, the illumination they give particularly necessary in a tricky situation under nothing but the stars. Sam stops moving and regards the two figures that are standing there waiting for him. Under the night sky, their shadows are long and blue-black.

The first wears what has come to be an irritatingly familiar visage. Lucifer. Satan’s smile rides low across his face and his eyes are brightly lit beneath slightly hooded lids. His skin is tattered and patchy and Sam thinks he can see a bit of jawbone peeking through a cheek, moonlight glinting off a sharp white edge.

The other’s face is even more familiar. It’s been with him since the day he was born. Sam hasn’t seen his brother in weeks; he’s seen his brother’s _body_ , sure, but a different awareness stared out at him from it. A slight glow is emanating from the body’s every pore, emitting most brightly from the eye sockets. The air around him seems to be vibrating slightly.

The two brothers aren’t quite shoulder-to-shoulder, but they’re close enough.

“Sam,” Lucifer’s illusorily benign smile grows wider, “You made it.”

“You made sure of that,” says Sam, voice wry and steady.

“Well, though we know you insist you’re a big boy now, we thought you needed chaperoning,” says Lucifer, raising one hand to beckon him forward.

But Sam doesn’t move.

“Come _on_ ,” says Michael, “Even I want you to say yes, Sam. I’ve been waiting millennia for this showdown, so let’s get this show on the road already.” Michael’s particular tone is one Sam’s never heard from Dean’s vocal chords before. The way he holds Dean’s body is different too, excess confidence ingrained from countless years spent being reassured of his valued position and moral upright clear in the set of his shoulders.

“What is this, a united front?” says Sam, "Finally figured out you’re stronger together?”

“We are able to cooperate when pursuing the same goal,” says Lucifer.

“A brotherly reunion before the destruction of humanity. I suppose it’s never too late,” Sam responds.

“Something like that,” Michael says, “Lucky for us you didn’t try it sometime.”

The jab doesn't sting. Sam knows Michael's wrong.

“Only a few moments more to wait before they're as reunited as they'll ever be, brother,” says Lucifer to Michael.

“Sam,” he continues, face perversely earnest, “Why are you still resisting? What could you possibly have to live for? I don’t mean to upset you. But I fail to understand your continued obstinacy. Dean’s recognized the futility of trying to stop this. It’s going to happen, Sam. Just say _yes_.”

“I’ve already told you what my answer is. No. I can repeat it again and again but it’s _never_ going to change.”

For the first time, Lucifer’s voice betrays his impatience. “And I thought you were supposed to be the smarter half of the dynamic duo. Sam, be rational.”

Sam says nothing, just stands still, feet planted firmly and carefully on the road’s pavement, spine straight and confident. As the seconds stretch pass, the other figures start to fidget slightly.

The brothers shift toward each other, communicating only through facial ticks and small gestures, the many years long apartheid done nothing to quench their innate understanding of the other. They’re conferring, but Sam doesn’t need to know what they're saying. If all goes to plan, it won’t matter in a minute or two.

Michael turns to face him fully. “Dean says you should say yes. He’s in here with me, you know. He wants you to give in.” His voice is solemn and Sam can hear the ring of power behind it.

“No, he doesn’t,” says Sam. He doesn’t need to be with his brother to recognize his true voice. “He may have given up hope for himself but he’d never tell me to go down without a fight.”

The thing is, Michael and Lucifer have been watching him like hawks. But thanks to one last favor he called in to Castiel, for the last 24 hours, Sam’s been flying utterly solo, untraceable and aloof.

So, yeah, the angel and demon on his shoulders have been trailing Sam, leading him down to an apocalyptic showdown outside Motor City. He’s been letting them do it.

And he’s got one last ace up his sleeve.

Here’s what the master plan involved: the Internet, a mini-library of ancient texts that have been riding around in the back seat of the Impala, and a can of black spray paint. Resourceful geek-boy to the rescue.

They fall back into silence and three pairs of eyes regard each other silently. One deceptively blue, one Dean-green ringed with fizzing white, one hazel.

And then Sam snaps his to black.

Lucifer glides forward, stalking steadily toward Sam, as Michael stays back, eyes narrowed in nuisance, when Sam says, “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.”

Lucifer pauses. Michael asks, “What?”

“I said, I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I wouldn’t take a single step closer.”

“Why not?” Lucifer asks, tone measured and careful.

“Because if you do, it may very well be the last one you’ll ever take.”

Sam twists his hand, and, with a flick of his fingers, lines of fire spring up along the ground around him. It’s a trick he’s been practicing for a while now.

The fire isn’t arbitrary - it flares up on along the paint lines he sprayed a few hours ago on the old, tar-colored road. The lines are arranged in a special pattern. They encircle him completely, stretching under the Impala to his back.

Sam’s trapped himself in a Devil’s Trap.

They aren’t getting his body.

The Devils Trap is a special, very powerful one, designed just for freaky Boy-Kings like himself. He’s locked in tight and he knows he won’t be able to get out of it on his own. But, if they entered, the same would be applied to Michael and Lucifer.

Lucifer catches on first, too many of his generals having returned cursing traps and all their many functions.  
“Just what are you planning, Samuel? You’re at our mercy now, are you not? You’re bound and you cannot get out.”

“No. But neither can you get in, not if you ever want to get back out to run free and torture again.”

Sam may be in a physical bind, but the brothers are in a mental one. They can’t just leave him – abandoning Lucifer’s chosen vessel on the eve of humanity’s destruction would be tantamount to giving up – but they can’t get at him, either. And if they leave him there alone, who knows what could happen to him? There are plenty of people jockeying for Sam’s cadaver.

No supernatural entity’s going to dare cross the line. At least, that’s what Sam’s betting on. The trap’s a powerful son of a bitch and anyone who toes inside is stuck for good. How much is Sam’s meatsuit worth, exactly? In any case, it’s caught them off guard and it should buy him some time.

“So what are you going to do, Sam?” asks Michael, “Forever keep us at an impasse?”

“Stay in denial that you can get your old world back?” asks Lucifer, “When the center of your universe has already given up and gone?”

“You can’t win,” the brothers finish in tandem.

Sam’s eyes close and his forehead scrunches in concentration. He reaches out with the palm of his right hand while his left clenches around the bull’s head hanging from his neck, an anchor to all that keeps him human while he drains every last speck of Yellow-Eyed given ability from deep within his blood.

“Actually,” Sam says, “I can.”

One thing Sam’s learned in the past few years is this: With Devil’s Traps, come exorcisms.

Sam opens his mouth and begins to chant.

The spell, one of his own creation, is based off a ritual found in the back of one of Bobby’s old books and off of another found in an obscure text he ordered from Amazon. It’s part Latin and part Enochian. Perfects for angels, demons, fallen angels, Boy Kings, and everything in between.

The human part of him reads while the demon inside writhes in pain. He’s exorcising anything in a hundred mile radius. That includes Lucifer and Michael. And, it includes just a little bit of himself.

The Enochian words are a strange shape on his tongue. They roll with none of the familiarity as the Latin does, from hours of practicing with Dean at the age of 14 and then hours of sitting bored in the back of Mr. Grady’s high school class at the age of 18. They feel strange, they feel _wrong_ , but Sam knows his purpose is right and so he forces them out, one after another.

The bits of gravel lying along the edge of the road swirl up around him, making strange gray streaking patterns as they fly through the air. Leaves rip off the trees with gale-like force. Sam’s voice grows louder with every word he speaks.

He is _literally_ the only entity in creation who could speak this spell. No full demon or angel could stand to vocalize the words of a supernatural cleansing ritual – the biggest and baddest Sam could create - and no full human could correctly say the Enochian involved that gives it its special power.

Lucifer’s eyes quickly grow from a slow coal burn to blazing embers as recognition flares. Michael’s caught on too, and his wings can now be seen, the black shadows illuminated by the glare of the Impala’s headlights as they beat against the sky, raising the wind levels even higher.

Sam can hear the pair screaming words at him, taunts perhaps, or other spells of their own, but he blocks them all out and thinks of nothing but his brother. Memories flash through his mind – happy memories, and plenty of them, no matter what Heaven thinks.

Hysterically, the last thought that rolls through Sam’s mind before he gives himself away completely to the roll of the spell off his tongue and the rush of power flooding through his system is how, if Dean were here, he’d tease him something fierce about needing a haircut with all this wind blowing through it like he’s Fabio, not an only sort-of human hopeful Apocalypse ender. Sam smiles and then _concentrates_.

Lucifer’s fingers curl up and snap. Sam can feel a wave of raw power, dark, hot and heady, hit him firmly in the chest, leaping through his skin till it mingles with the tainted blood of his own, trying to torch him from the inside.

Michael doesn’t use his hands – his eyes fill up completely with blinding force, new growth green temporarily yielding to a shock of white energy. His energy scorches, feels almost piercingly clean as it runs around Sam like a halo, blasting him from all directions.

The combined force of their powers is strong enough to make him stagger back a few steps. But the Impala’s right behind him, and it holds up his weight, and Sam stays in the fire-marked circle and keeps chanting, antediluvian words spilling from his lips in an unstoppable stream.

Eventually, he spits out the very last syllable.

Michael snuffs out like a light and Sam sees his brother’s body crumple and hit the ground hard.

Lucifer hangs on a moment longer. He drags the force of his power away from Sam and throws it at the Earth itself, splitting deep chasm into the black road. The crack breaks through the binds of Sam’s Devil’s Trap, just as Meg did with the one on the ceiling so many months ago. One last satanic tactic for getting at his chosen vessel.

But it’s too late; that was the last of Lucifer’s strength and his face starts to incinerate, the dregs of his skin turning to ash before all the heat drains out of the area and Sam knows he’s gone. Maybe not forever. But for long past Sam’s own 60 plus years left.

The chasm in the ground’s possibly the luckiest thing that’s happened to Sam in a long while. He freely walks out of the Devil’s Trap without a scratch.

Lucifer’s meatsuit is nothing but a pile of charred bones and rags lying piled at a fork in the crossroads.

Michael’s, likewise twisted on the ground, lets out a groan as a hand reaches out in an attempt to latch on to anything tangible. Sam catches it.

“Dean,” he breaths, “ _Dean_. Can you hear me? Are you okay?”

“Sammy?”

Sam lets out a shaky laugh, high on adrenaline and all consuming relief.

“What’d you do? Where’s Michael? And Lucifer?”

“I did it, Dean. I stopped it. And I saved you.”

Dean’s eyes are saucer-like and he looks both terribly weary and terribly young. He can’t seem to get his body to move properly, too many days of operating on autopilot making manual transmission unfamiliar. Sam helps him up into a sitting position and doesn’t remove his arms from where they grasp around Dean’s neck and torso.

“What?” Dean’s voice is disbelieving. “It’s really over? Just like that? You did it?”

Sam nods and his grin is mile wide and he can’t seem to stop _touching_ , one hand running down Dean’s chest while the other palms his face, thumb tracing along the slant of his cheekbone. Dean’s not stopping him either, just sitting there docilely and staring up at Sam as though seeing him anew.

“Sammy,” he says, voice quiet, “Why didn’t you say yes? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you didn’t," he pauses for a moment, airy laughter spilling out helplessly, “I’m sure the King of Hell would have been even more annoying to put up with than the feathery dick I got stuck with, but, why didn’t you give in?”

“ _Dean._ Because of _you._ ”

“Because of me? What? But… Sam, I wasn’t even strong enough to give Michael the finger last time he came knocking. I was too weak.”

“No, Dean. I didn’t give in because I knew you were still in there. And I was going to get you back.”

“But-" Dean falters for a moment. He seems to finally be getting control of his limbs and reaches out and clasps Sam’s shoulder. His hand's moving across Sam’s chest, reassuring himself of his brother’s existence, same as Sam’s doing to Dean, when it brushes against the amulet. Dean starts slightly, reaching out a finger to brush along its edges before looking back up to meet Sam’s eyes.

“Don’t you get it yet?" Sam says, "I love you so damn much that I-"

Dean cuts him off with the force of his lips. Sam gasps and moves back against him eagerly. He licks into Dean’s mouth and Dean parts easily, tongues tangling before tracing every nook and cranny, learning the shapes.

When they break for air, Sam slips the amulet off his neck and puts it back around his brother’s. Dean’s smile is the widest Sam can remember it being in many years and he can tell that their hearts are both beating out the same funny, pounding pattern. He pulls Dean back in and Dean murmurs against his lips, “Sam. You just stopped Armageddon. What do ya say we splurge for a damn nice bed.”

"You are so damn cheesy, Dean," Sam says, but his grin is so wide he doesn't think he'll ever stop.

Later, there are clothes flung around the hotel room and brothers twisted tightly together on a first class king-sized mattress. Their fingers are intertwined, bodies locked together snugly. The amulet’s pressed between them.


End file.
